


safe house in the hurricane

by brynnmclean (ilfirin_estel)



Series: cast some light 'verse [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Background Bodhi Rook/Luke Skywalker - Freeform, Character Study, Dreams and Nightmares, Established Relationship, F/M, Found Families, Jyn and Bodhi are bros, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Rating May Change, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 20:23:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11425506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilfirin_estel/pseuds/brynnmclean
Summary: “If I’m gone longer than a month,” Cassian says, something hesitant in his gaze like he’s biting back a promise.“I’ll come after you,” Jyn says, burning with it. She will, shewill,she doesn’t care what Draven or anyone else says. If Cassian gets into trouble, nothing will stop Jyn from diving right into the mess of it to find him and fight at his side.Or, the one where Cassian goes MIA and Jyn goes to find him. (Or, the fic with Plot!)





	safe house in the hurricane

Jyn dreams of her father. Not of him on Eadu—though the smell of mud and rain and smoke is thick and cloying, clinging to Galen’s clothes when he embraces her. The barest coppery hint of blood is an undercurrent on his breath when he leans down to kiss her cheek.

She dreams of her mother, too. If she approaches Lyra, she smells the tall grass of Lah’mu and the acrid burn of blaster fire. When Lyra smiles at Jyn, her face softens and something in Jyn’s gut gets twisted up around the hope that maybe Lyra would be proud of her, of how she made the decision to fight in the waking world.

Jyn even dreams of Saw sometimes, though he’s often distant, a figure who watches her from the corner of a room with both guarded affection and calculation while he dismantles and cleans blaster rifles or puts together detonators for a run—and she’s always torn in two at the sight of him, sorrow and fury scraped inside her, heavy and bruising when she breathes.

When Jyn doesn’t have nightmares about Scarif or other missions gone sideways, she has variations of the same dream, a terrible one caught between a patchwork of memories stitched together with the longing for a different universe where she could speak to them again, all three of her parents.

They’re all together in the house on Lah’mu, sitting around the kitchen table and talking in low voices about things she can’t hear or understand. Her hearing is muted, or their words are garbled nonsense—or maybe it’s just that she doesn’t know what they would talk about here in this room. Partisan plans? The next harvest season? In the dream, she’s simultaneously a naive child playing with dolls on the floor, and a grown woman who studies them with the distance and knowledge of her years with and without them. Her life colors them in.

Jyn understands them when they speak directly to her. It’s the strangest part of the dream.

They ask her if she’s happy.

She wakes up some days thinking she might be. But it’s a tentative thing she’s cultivating, the spark of hope. It’s small, but strong—something she could build upon. 

Most days, though, she doesn’t reflect on it much, too busy getting swept up in the next mission, the next fight, the next and the next and the next. There’s a war on. What use does she have in the waking world for the idea of happiness? Or for thoughts of the dead? It’s the living who matter, and each present day, every breath in her lungs. One more day above ground. 

It’s only in the dark that Jyn allows herself to think about the sliver of a chance at a future, only when she’s curled up in bed with Cassian sleep-warm beside her. Then the dream haunts her, sharp and bittersweet in the early hours of the morning. Galen’s voice is rough, broken with distance and grief, but his words are a gift, the wish he gave her over the hologram: _if you found a place in the galaxy untouched by war—a quiet life, maybe with a family—if you’re_ happy, _Jyn, then that’s more than enough._

 _Nothing is untouched by war,_ she wants to tell her father. _Not a single thing. But maybe—_ maybe—

Jyn never lets herself finish the thought. She only crowds closer to Cassian and tries to go back to sleep.

-

Here’s a truth Jyn doesn’t voice: at the heart of the matter, she doesn’t stay with the Alliance after Scarif for just the cause.

The _cause._ She hears Saw’s voice in her head when she thinks of the Rebellion in those terms, how he’d said _you care not about the cause_ with such disbelief and not an ounce of guilt for abandoning her when she’d been fighting for at his side from age eight to sixteen. He’d said she was his best soldier because of her belief in the Force-damned cause, but it’s never been wholly about that to her.

After Melshi and his team broke her out of Wobani, she’d agreed to work with the Alliance for the promise of freedom. It had seemed a hollow bargain to her even then—freedom from what, the Rebellion, the Empire? Freedom to do what, to keep running endlessly, alone? 

The cause. Freedom. Simple words for complicated concepts. She stays, she _fights_ for more tangible things.

One of her on-base assignments is to train new recruits in hand-to-hand combat. There are more of them joining the Rebellion every day. The destruction of Jedha and Alderaan was a wake-up call to many trying to survive under the shadow of the Empire.

Alderaan. _Alderaan._ The thought of that world still snags inside Jyn like a broken rib, the shame of it cutting her legs out from under her and wrapping an ugly fist around her throat—a whole planet obliterated by the weapon her father helped build even as he planted the seed of its destruction. A whole planet of people they couldn’t save.

She didn’t see it happen, not like the dark storm of Jedha or the bright crumpled horizon of Scarif, but it cuts her deeper because she’d been foolish enough to think that maybe the plans had made it to the Rebellion in time.

Jyn lost her head when the news reached her. She’d been at Cassian’s bedside—Cassian strapped into machines, half-dead and delirious—and she remembers making some terrible, wounded animal sound before her vision cut out. She came back to herself on the cold floor of medical, her breath still coming in too fast, shredding her panicked heart. _Too late, Papa,_ she’d thought, frantic and sick. _Too late._

But Bodhi had been there next to her, grasping her hand tightly in his own, his chest heaving and voice thick with tears as he’d said, “It’s not too late, it’s _still not too late_ —to do something about it.”

She hadn’t known for sure that she was going to stay with the Rebellion until that moment with Bodhi. His hand in hers, his fierce belief reigniting her own. 

Here’s the truth: she fights, above all, for _people._

She knows she’s prickly and rough, still tripping over learned instincts to bare her teeth and hide any hints of vulnerability—but after the Death Star was destroyed, Mon Mothma offered her again the freedom to run with only fear and loneliness for companions, and Jyn turned it down flat. 

She doesn’t want to be alone anymore. Not while there’s Cassian, Bodhi, Baze, Chirrut—even Kaytoo and all the rest.

Bodhi is right. It’s not too late. The chances aren’t all spent.

And she has more than ghosts at her side now.

-

Something in Jyn’s stomach twists hot and sick when Cassian tells her goodbye. He’s leaving for another damned mission without her, shouldering his bag, his eyes downcast and his voice quiet but audible as he walks away from her: “Goodbye, Jyn.”

A strangled sound crawls its way out of Jyn’s throat—it’s her terrified heart beating in her mouth, words trapped behind her teeth, _no no no, don’t_ say _that._

The bewilderment in her head doesn’t make any sense. Lyra, Galen, Saw—none of them had said goodbye outright when they left her. 

Maybe it would have been better if they had.

She doesn’t say anything— _please come back for me, come back_ to _me_ —but Cassian must hear that humiliating sound of dismay, because he stumbles to a halt and glances over at her. His eyes widen as he takes in whatever he reads on her face. It only takes two long strides for him to backtrack to her, a split second for him to drop his pack and cup her face between his palms.

She almost shoves him away, automatically puts her hands flat against his chest, but then her fingers curl tight in his jacket.

He licks his lips in that unconscious gesture that means he’s measuring possible actions before he finds his resolve. What he decides on is leaning down and kissing her briefly but firmly, uncaring of the fact that they’re standing out in the open on the flight deck where anyone can see. She opens her mouth and tastes an apology on his tongue.

“If I’m gone longer than a month,” he says when he pulls away, something hesitant in his gaze like he’s biting back a promise.

“I’ll come after you,” she says, burning with it. She will, she _will,_ she doesn’t care what Draven or anyone else says. If Cassian gets into trouble, nothing will stop Jyn from diving right into the mess of it to find him and fight at his side.

Cassian ducks his head back down to kiss her again, this one sweeter, lingering. “You’ll be informed if something happens. I put you in my records.”

The words are stark, but his voice isn’t—it’s the warmth of their bed, it’s his arms around her when she shakes awake from a nightmare. It’s his lips gentle against the back of her neck, his breath on her skin in the quiet dark: _I’m here._

Jyn has to clutch at him for a second, dizzy with relief and shame. She closes her eyes and tips forward, pressing her forehead into his shoulder. The stillness of surprise stiffens the lines of him, but then he folds an arm around her and lets her hold onto him until she’s steady again.

“Sorry,” she says when she steps back, heavy with all the things she wants to say, but can’t. So many apologies are caught in her throat— _sorry for doubting you, sorry for delaying you, sorry for needing—_

Cassian gently touches her cheek and tilts her face up so she can’t hide from his gaze, the light of concern in his eyes. There is nothing closed off about him when he looks at her now, no spy’s veneer. “Jyn, I…” 

He hesitates, swallowing something back as he studies her expression. Her heart is pounding, a dull roar in her ears. _Don’t,_ she thinks, panicked again. He can’t say he loves her and then walk away. He can’t say it for the first time and then leave her. _Please don’t._

Cassian smiles, a tiny devastating quirk of his lips. “A month.”

Jyn breathes, rocking back on her heels a little. She doesn’t think she can manage to speak so she just nods.

But a minute later, as he’s walking away again, she thinks— _no, wait_ —and there it is, her voice flying across the deck, “Cassian!” 

He turns. She has to jog to catch up to him, but he waits for her to reach him. The hope on his face is bright, blinding.

“Cassian,” she says, coming close because her voice breaks in the middle of his name. Her offering to him is clumsy, awkwardly circling around what she wants him to understand but can’t, can’t, _can’t_ bear to say. “Cassian, I—I put you in my records, too.” 

Cassian softens before her eyes, staring at her like he can hear what she’s trying to convey. He takes her hand in his and squeezes. The gesture gives her courage to say something else—a wish that feels fragile in the air, but growing stronger by the minute. “Come home safe.”

-

Jyn hits the mat for what feels like the hundredth time and finally concedes defeat with an exhausted laugh. She takes the hand that Chirrut offers and lets him pull her to her feet, winces a little when he claps her on the shoulder. She’s already starting to feel like one giant bruise, but it’s good, it’s needed. She’ll sleep better for it tonight.

It’s been three weeks since Cassian left for his mission and the bed still feels empty and cold without him. But it’s really the worrying that keeps her up at night, the persistent thought of him out there in the field without her at his side. 

“Thanks,” she tells Chirrut, dry but genuine. She’d asked to spar with him, knowing full well she wasn’t going to win any matches. Winning isn’t the point. Still trying to catch her breath, she says, “Force willing, one of these days I’ll land a decent hit.”

Chirrut laughs and makes a magnanimous hand gesture. “If the Force wills it.”

Jyn wipes the sweat off her brow and stretches out some of her sore muscles. She glances around the training area and spots two of their latest recruits on the sidelines talking with Bodhi and Luke Skywalker. “Hey Skywalker!” she calls out, partly for Chirrut’s benefit, since Luke is probably here to try his own hand at sparring with Chirrut—though Chirrut always seems to know when Luke is around. Jyn suspects it’s a Force thing. “You ready to get your ass handed to you?”

Luke laughs, bending down to pick up the water bottles Jyn left on the edge of the ring. He brings them over along with the weighted staff he’s been using in lieu of his lightsaber. Jyn takes the water from Luke with a grateful sigh.

“At least sometimes I can make him break out into a sweat,” Luke teases her before he turns a little more serious. “Hello, Master Îmwe.”

Chirrut smiles in Luke’s direction while tapping Jyn’s thigh lightly with his staff. “Respectful as ever, Luke, unlike this one here!” 

Jyn shakes her head, too busy swallowing another mouthful of water to fire back at either of them. Her brain feels as tired as her body; she’s not even sure if anything she’d say would make any sense.

Chirrut puts his hand back on her shoulder, the touch gentle but firm, his expression softening. “Go rest, Jyn. Unless you and Luke want to actually provide a challenge for me together.”

“Now there’s an idea…” Luke says, all bright energy and eagerness, but Jyn just laughs and waves him off.

“You’re on your own tonight, but another time, definitely.”

Before he pushes her off the mat, Chirrut tugs her in to press a quick kiss to her temple. “Goodnight, little sister,” he says and it always floors her, the pet name, the sentiment. Jyn hopes that Chirrut senses the overwhelming rush of affection she feels whenever he and Baze call her that. She hasn’t been able to find the words to convey her gratitude for it.

“Goodnight,” she says, and then goes over to join Bodhi at the sidelines. The recruits have run off, which is mostly a relief to her—she doesn’t have energy for much more than standing beside Bodhi and butting her forehead against his arm in a playful sort of greeting. She’s sweaty and gross and exhausted, but Bodhi still slings an arm around her and lets her lean on him.

“Hi,” he says, a smile audible in his voice. She doesn’t look up, just shuts her eyes and sighs slowly, soaking up the comfort of his presence. He smells like motor oil and caf—she thinks he must have been tinkering with his ship, vaguely recalls him saying something about his _Cadera_ at dinner. He squeezes her a little closer. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, straightening up out of her slump, shaking herself a bit. “The usual, you know.”

“I know,” Bodhi replies, worry creeping in, the twin of hers. “One more week, right?”

Jyn hooks her teeth into her bottom lip and grunts an affirmative, trying not to focus on the sour pessimism simmering in her gut. A lot can go wrong in a week. But Cassian—Cassian is _fine._ “He has Kay looking out for him,” she says, just as much for her own benefit as Bodhi’s. “And it’s a recruitment mission.” That’s the little she was able to glean from the rumor mill and the scant information Cassian hinted at before he left. She’ll push for more if he doesn’t meet the month’s deadline. She’ll march up to Draven himself and put her fist into his face if that’s what it takes.

Bodhi’s breath catches audibly in his throat when Luke does an admittedly impressive flip over Chirrut and tries to catch the Guardian off guard—still to no avail. Chirrut easily dances out of Luke’s reach, both of them laughing. Jyn looks up to see Bodhi’s spellbound expression and can’t help but grin and dig her elbow into his side.

“Hey, did you come here to drool over your boyfriend or to see me?”

Bodhi startles, eyes wide as he glances down at her, caught. “What? I—” He flails when she teasingly digs into his side again, but a sheepish smile spreads across his face. “I can’t do both? Multiple objectives?”

“Sure, sure,” Jyn laughs, fitting herself back against him. It’s nice standing next to a friend and feeling safe. If anyone had told her back when she’d been scraping a lonely life in the shadows of the war that she’d be here now, she would have asked what kind of spice they were on.

She and Bodhi watch Chirrut and Luke spar for a few more minutes before Jyn recognizes that she’s leaning more heavily into Bodhi and her eyelids suddenly feel difficult to lift out of half-mast. 

“I’ll walk you back,” Bodhi offers, which she waves off, gesturing toward the other men and the way they whirl around each other, graceful as dancers, but with coiled deadliness and strength. 

“And deprive you of this sight?” she says with a wry smile. “I don’t think so.”

Jyn is always a little jealous, watching how Chirrut and Luke move. She knows she’s good in a fight—Saw once called her _brutally efficient_ in a rare moment of praise—but there’s no way she can tap into whatever it is they feel, the Force that flows through them. She believes in it—it’s hard not to, watching how effortlessly Chirrut darts out of reach without relying on sight—but she hasn’t felt it definitively. There have been a handful of times when she’s sure she’s felt _something,_ a certainty in her path, an internal sense of rightness guiding her through a task that felt impossible. _Trust the Force,_ her mother had told her, and she’s tried. But more often than not, it feels as out of reach as Lyra’s ghost.

Bodhi laughs good-naturedly at Jyn, bringing her out of her thoughts. There’s concern in his dark eyes that has her rolling her shoulders back and straightening up out of her unconscious slump against him. “Come on,” he says, studying her. “I can catch up with Luke later.”

Jyn wants to bristle beneath his scrutiny, but this is Bodhi—he’s _safe,_ he’s not looking for a weak point to slide a knife into her—so she just shakes her head and pulls a smile to her face. “Afraid I’ll get lost?”

“You look tired.” Bodhi grasps her arm firmly, but very gently. “You look like you might walk into a wall.”

Jyn snorts, but it feels good when he tucks her back under his arm. Comfortable. Awfully selfish, though, stealing Bodhi away and taking up more of his time just because she’s hollowed out with loneliness. “I’m fine,” she says, but her heart isn’t in it. She can feel Bodhi’s eyes on her as he starts herding her out into the halls, and she’s too tired, too _selfish_ to continue protesting.

It’s a long walk through the star cruiser to where she and Cassian have been staying, but Bodhi’s company makes it feel short. She makes an effort to keep up a conversation, asks after his ships—he’s acquired three of them now, there’s a running joke in Rogue Squadron about piracy. Her heart always squeezes in her chest when he mentions his second ship, the _Galen._

He’s still keeping quiet on what he’s naming his third ship, no matter how many times anyone asks. “I’m not sure of it yet,” he tells Jyn, but the tentative smile on his face says otherwise. He changes the subject quickly to breakfast plans for tomorrow morning. The thought of waking up early right now makes her want to sleep straight through the week, but she’d regret having to resort to the dismal quality of the later morning caf.

Bodhi hugs her when they reach her quarters, and it’s—she has to swallow past the ache in her throat when he holds her for a few minutes. “It’s going to be okay,” he says, his voice a little strained. She knows instinctively that he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s trying to convince her. “Cassian’ll be okay.”

 _Is this what family is supposed to do,_ she wonders, curling her fingers in Bodhi’s shirt, clinging. _They hold each other up to keep from falling?_ It’s still terrifying, but she lets herself have this, lets herself trust it, to believe her family won’t slip out of her grasp again.

“Thanks,” she whispers into Bodhi’s shoulder before she breaks the moment, shoving him away and ordering him to get going. “Go see Luke. Go see _a lot_ of Luke.”

She’ll never get over the thrill of making Bodhi blush. He ducks his head a bit, but calls back to her as he leaves, “See you tomorrow morning, then? Breakfast?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Jyn promises, and even though her quarters are silent and cold, Cassian’s absence still stark and painful, there’s a faint smile on her face when the door slides shut.

-

Jyn dreams of the cave. As the days drag onward with no word, no sign of Cassian, the cave returns to her, robbing her of rest. The cave is not the one from Lah’mu, not entirely. The years have stripped the details of that hideaway from her memory, other events pouring in through the gaps, staining the walls with old blood and carbon scouring. She dreams of the cave over and over, but it’s not just the one of her childhood, no; it’s not one place anymore, it’s a patchwork of many, the borders blurring until the nightmare rushes over her like a wave, crushing her down into the deep.

She shivers in the darkness, waiting for someone to find her and keep her safe, whisper sweet lies in her ear about how everything is going to be all right. She’s not a fool, not a _baby_ —she knows there are monsters in the shadows, their breath heavy and rank, speech distorted, save for a cold voice giving that dispassionate order: _do it._

There’s dust in her mouth, Lah’mu dirt, Jedha sand, warm copper between her teeth, the sliver of light gone black as death troopers march closer to where she hides. The stomp of their boots on stone, the creak of their armor as they loom over her—one of them laughs, the sound sharp, barbed wire twisted around the number they gave her in Wobani after they stripped her of all her names, save the one she hadn’t heard since she was small. She shrinks back into the wall, curls her hands into fists against her stomach, an animal hiding her soft places, baring her teeth and snarling. _There is no weakness here._

She dreams that she’s buried down deep in a cell, water trickling down from the ceiling, hitting her forehead, seeping into her clothes. The rain soaking her is the storm of Eadu, the salt-sea of Scarif, the tears she tasted on Cassian’s lips the first time they kissed. Thunder rumbles outside and it’s Partisan bombs in Ni-Jedha, in a thousand Imperial occupied cities she lived in but never once called home. Her fingernails dig into her palms because she’s holding back a scream as she watches her mother crumple into the grass, her father screaming—no, the holo flickers and she’s on her knees listening to Galen’s voice shatter when he speaks of her with longing, Saw a cold shadow at her back.

She dreams of the cave, of Saw finding her and opening the hatch to let the light in. He peers down at her for a moment, an eternity, his lips moving soundlessly around the words, _my child, my daughter,_ before his face turns to stone, to steel, a mask she can’t read as he slams the door and locks her back down in the dark.

There’s a knife in Jyn’s hands, a shard of metal she could use as a blade against her guards except no, _no_ —it’s a lantern sputtering to life when she shakes it, its glow a dull, sickly orange that flickers against the boxes of supplies that surround her small frame. She cups the light between her palms, and it’s her mother’s kyber crystal shining bright before it drains away like the life in someone’s eyes, blood and rain on the ground—and Jyn dissolves into tears, small and cold and alone. Her stomach clenches, empty save for terror and grief. She waits and she waits and she waits in the cave, even though she knows no one’s coming for her and this isn’t a game. It never was a game, no matter that it made her father feel better to pretend.

 _It’s so hard not to think of you—I have so much to tell you,_ a broken man whispers, his image blurring as the ground shakes, and she has to reach him, she has to— _climb._ She climbs up the ladder and it stretches on forever toward a light she’s afraid she can’t reach, but she has to, her hands slipping on the rungs, her teeth clenched so hard around the sobs in her throat her jaw aches steady now, a cruel familiarity.

It’s the rain of Eadu streaking down her face, it’s the cold spray of the waves crashing on Scarif’s shores. A shout rings out into the air, her name, the name she hasn’t heard in so long, certainly not spoken with any fragment of love—it’s more often a knife held against her throat, only a weapon wielded to trap her—but no. It’s Cassian’s voice reaching out to her as she climbs up the data tower, Cassian shouting her name before he falls and breaks his back. 

Cassian, her heart. 

The world shifts around him, caught in his orbit as he pulls her to him and clutches her close. His lips move against her skin, but there isn’t any sound, her heart pounding in her ears as she thinks, _no, no, don’t leave me, don’t go—_

He’s come back from the dead for her before, come back to her again and again to hold her in his arms, but he falls, he falls—the stone walls crumble and he slips out of her grasp, a scream caught in her throat as he’s crushed down deep into the earth.

She wakes.

Night after night, she gasps awake in her quarters on the star cruiser with this new dream, this new lurking horror. The room is cold and silent and she reaches for Cassian automatically, her hands twisting in the sheets where he would lay beside her. If he were here.

He’s still not home. The week passes with no word from him.

But there’s a light in her burning brighter with each day, a star inside her flaring with the promise she made to him in the hangar bay: _I’ll come after you._

“All right, Cassian,” she says, shoving away her nightmares, her jaw clenched against the fear trembling in her voice. “I’ll find you. I’ll bring you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fic that grew something shaped sort of like Plot! Bear with me as I get this one together!
> 
> Extra amounts of gratitude this time around to [eisoj5](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/pseuds/Eisoj5) for not only her amazing beta work but also for letting me borrow Bodhi's growing fleet from her fic, [I guess I'll know when I get there](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8910982/chapters/20414107). Thank you again for everything, my dear friend! <3
> 
> Thanks are also owed to [arnirien](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Arnirien/pseuds/Arnirien) for also reading over the draft of this and for generally being so lovely and supportive.
> 
> The quote from Galen's holo message in the beginning of this chapter is pulled directly from Alexander Freed's novelization. This part here wrecks me: “Yet if it isn’t so? If I’m wrong, and you left the Rebellion and Saw behind but this message still finds you? You make me no less proud, Jyn. If you found a place in the galaxy untouched by war—a quiet life, maybe with a family—if you’re happy, Jyn, then that’s more than enough.” 
> 
> Also, the title of this fic is from Frightened Rabbit's "400 Bones".


End file.
